Just a bit of sarcasm.

really, the subliminal point is the difference it makes from an eye-witness perspective to either recorded 'fact' or photos/videos.
As much as eye-witness accounts are great, on the surface they aren't wholly credible. I mean, a pilot could exaggerate to great lengths about events, and certainly a pilot never sat in the cockpit and said 'right, I need to remember what these tracers look like just for future reference'.
Having said that, I'm sure they would remember, and if you read any account on the battle, the pilots may explain the tracers with detail. I wish I could remember the pilot, but I have a distinct memory of ann account/book I read where the pilot went into detail about the de-wilde ammunition and how the tracers look. I think I can recall him mention the smoke-trails from the tracer, but I can't give a quote as I can't remember who the chap was.

As for photos and videos, well the old argument that they don't record what the eye sees holds a lot of water. Take anything like that with a pinch of salt really.

And fact? Well, who are we to judge? Until someone does a full test on the different types of ammunition and tracer, we won't know for certain. But certainly Air-Ministry AP's are helpful and so are pilot accounts, and lastly photos and videos.

But no, I did not fight in the war but then I would never attempt to justifiy that I did. :D and me saying 'I was' is not me trying to lead you on.

However, Tim Elkington, a famous BoB Hurricane pilot, posts (infrequently) at the a2a forums in the BoB2 section, and some of his posts really are illuminating. I'm sure if any one here who has an account there, or wishes to make one, posed the question regarding tracers (or anything similar) Tim may be able to offer a nice explanation. He does some RAF events as well, and i have always wanted to try to go to one to have a chat with him.

What? Are you just making this stuf up? :confused:





NATO 5.56mm tracer construction:


http://www.inetres.com/gp/military/i.../556_ammo2.gif

http://www.inetres.com/gp/military/i...856_tracer.gif



NATO 7.62mm tracer:


http://www.inetres.com/gp/military/i...2mm_tracer.gif
http://www.inetres.com/gp/military/i.../762mm_M62.gif

Old US .30 cal (.30-06) tracer:


http://www.inetres.com/gp/military/i..._M1_tracer.gif




50 BMG tracer:

http://www.ammoman.com/spotter_tracer_files/spotter.gif


Russian 7.62x54R tracers:


http://www.gunpics.net/articles/762x54_4.jpghttp://www.gunpics.net/articles/762x54_3.jpg

25mm AP sabot tracer:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...s/M919diag.gif


As you can see they all have a pocket for pyrotechnic flare powder. That flare is what you see in flight.

All your talking cannot hide the fact that you tried to pretend you fought in uniform. Where I come from that is deeply offensive. Some things cannot be relativized, no matter how much you try.

Yes, I know Tim Elkington from the forums. But just because I read his postings I don't confuse myself with him. I wonder what he'd think about a chat with someone who tries to pass himself off as a veteran.

I understand your point if someone was really trying to pass themselves off as having served but I honestly saw the original posting as a joke. A sarcastic "nahnah nah nahnah" if you will ;).

Splitter

Yes, thanks Splitter, that was all the post was meant to be :(
Sorry if I offended anyone. I never tried to pass myself off as anyone though; I didn't say I was so and so...
I do quite a good Douglas Bader impression though.....

Sorry, but I really think you are over-reacting. Philip's comment was obviously sarcastic, tongue in cheek - maybe ill-advised, but to build it into some calculated insult to real wartime veterans is ridiculous.

Thanks for the useful info Jaws.

The FN video taken from the fixed wing aircraft cockpit really shows best how tracers should, and will, look in the sim, with correct colors of course.

I have seen 30.06 tracers fired on a range from a bolt action rifle (US Rifle, cal .30, Model of 1917. Same as the British P14 Enfield only in .30-06 instead of .303) and even standing behind the shooter who was shooting from a bench rest there was no visible "spiral" pattern of the tracer, and no smoke either. This was with WW2 era tracer ammo.

I would never dream of saying anything against the brave men/women that served our country in those times.

But my comment was clearly uncalled for. I do have quite a dry, sarcastic humour. I think if I had said that to a mate, or anyone, the expression on my face or the way I said it would have shown it was just a saracastic joke. But on the internet it's very hard to get this accross, the same way it's hard for me to say how sorry I am if I've upset you.

Do you think altitude will affect it? If the tracer is burning, wouldn't the burning tracer cause the cold air to condense...? or even if the tracer is burning, smoke would be produced?
Clearly, as Oleg has hinted/said, there were lots of different tracer types, all of which will (hopefully) be modelled.

You're asking us to believe he tried to pass himself off as a 90-year old BoB pilot with a very pronounced interest in the shapes of clouds in a yet to be published computer game, and that he furthermore chose to keep this information to himself but then immediately revealed it when asked.

My diagnosis is a malfunctioning irony module and, before we all go nuts, I'm being ironic (just not well).

dduff

Cockpit looks great and dare we say photorealistic. Perfect job !
I also like the smoke and the fire ! Looks perfect !!!

On the screenshots, the grass looks strange ... but as it's not a ground simulator I wont be to severe on that point.

The clouds could look better and what I have seen untill now makes me a little bit worried about that point. In the previous screen sessions, the colouds looks too cartoony to me and I hope that it will be improved when all the wheather dynamics will be operational.

Now the clouds in BoB look like cotton wool bowls compared to what offer the latest simulators like ROF or FSX.

http://www.medical-world.biz/catalog...oolballs_l.jpg

http://www.firstaidwarehouse.co.uk/p..._small_242.jpg

Lets compare with some good standards of the simulation market.

BoB and FSX
http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/7344/bobfsx.jpg

amazing. nice night view.f and hurricane damage propeller and rudder.
very very good. and the sound is great. please fix that sound problem that yu said and do a more large vid.

i still love so much the stuka pic. is my favorite
http://s58.photobucket.com/albums/g260/restranger/

Redwan, those FSX clouds are just photos. It's not the same as the 3D dynamic clouds necessary in a combat sim.

Uncorrect. These clouds are reald 3d clouds.
Have a looks at this videos and the related ones to convince yourself:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4id7...eature=related

It looks like your just flying from one photo to the next ... it never looked as if you were interring or exiting a cloud. You never flew in the cloud, it looked like the cloud just flashed from one view to the next.

I'm not a 3d programmer, maybe Oleg can shed some light on this matter.

What's in a Name
 

Further to the Moscow event referred to earlier.
I noticed that one of the Russian Web sites, after translation, referred to
"Total War - IL-2 - Battle of Britain" .

Maybe Ubi is giving Oleg problems with using "Storm of War"

What price "Total War" as opposed to "Storm of War"?

Those clouds in FSX look really nice but they also looked a little sprite-ish and static to me. The clouds in SOW are fully 3d particles and are dynamic which means they will change shape and direction based on atmospheric conditions and produce turbulence. If you watch the video he posted again and watch the edges of the clouds closely you can actually see the clouds kinda spreading away and slowly changing direction. I think these clouds in the video Oleg posted here are the most convincing fully 3d dynamic cumulus clouds I have ever seen in a game.

This is an exceptional find for a newcomer to the forum!

I am pretty sure we haven't seen those exact screenshots before..at least not here on this forum.

FSX clouds are poorly done with little substance. FSX terrain ground textures are worse. FSX water textures are worse than the terrain. If SOW looks anything like FSX I will throw up on my keyboard.

They sure look nice, but more so the less they move. The FSX cloud system still uses big 2D billboards which have depth sorting issues (resulting in lots of flickering), they look unnatural when the camera is turning rapidly, they are difficult to use for line of sight calculations and they cannot change their shape dynamically (you can fade the textures in and out but that's it).

There is no perfect system for rendering clouds yet (i.e. true volumetric rendering with acceptable impact on performance), so compromises have to be made. From what I can see Oleg has chosen to further develop the Il2 cloud system, with better shading, higher resolution and more variety. He's still using less contrast than for example Rise of Flight which helps to reduce flickering, and more generic shapes which work better from all angles. That's important in a combat sim where you are more likely to fly through clouds at any angle - unlike a civilian sim where you are flying level for the most part.

Also don't forget that the REX clouds used as a reference is a commercial addon that costs about as much as the full SoW.

.


Oleg said a couple of times that craters will be bump mapped or similar (tessellation maybe), hopefully using the latest graphics technology for DX11.
I find it amazing what the new techniques can add to a flat modelled surface:


Video of tessellation on/off, a comparison:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdvZPIQpsQo
Tessellation explained:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPQ5Vy_5MP0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uavLefzDuQ


OFF/ON

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...tion_aus_2.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...ation_an_2.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...g?t=1288573749



http://www.nordichardware.se/image3.php?id=10039
http://computershopper.com/var/ezweb...n_maxwidth.jpg
http://www.evga.com/articles/00561/i...ssellation.jpg


http://www.geeks3d.com/public/jegx/2...ion-off-03.jpg
http://www.geeks3d.com/public/jegx/2...tion-on-03.jpg

My understanding is that normal mapping is simply bump mapping with higher precision (explicit vs. implicit surface normals) but you still don't change the polygon shape of the object, and the shading is confined to the polygon area (no additional detail visible at the edges). That's where tesselation would come into play, I think that's what would be required to get the result on the image to the right. Could be wrong though; I've done some graphics programming but it's been a while ;)

Using displacement mapping could work nicely with craters, as this adds more depth than bump or normal maps and there'd still be one flat texture per crater like in Il2. Using actual 3D objects is still difficult because they have to go through a separate rendering pass or they'll interfere with the land surface (the crater surface has to be under the ground level). And making the landscape itself deformable with the resolution to render craters would be even more difficult. But who knows, Oleg may yet surprise us. I guess he's already chosen a technique so it's a bit late anyway to give suggestions :)

Me too

The luxurious seats are stuffed with eagle down and the dashboard inlaid
with the beaks of a thousand eagles. Also, there are some eagles under the
floorboards.

ahem!

:)

But this DX 11 isn´t available only for Vista and 7?

Clouds & terrain look good on my install. Water: so-so. Granted I do use some 3rd party add ons. Take's more work to get it looking like this than a normal user would subject himself too...

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...&postcount=146

http://youtubedownload.altervista.org/

Download this proggy. Its called Youtube downloader. It does just that. Right click on the url of the video you want to download. Then copy and paste it into the down load bar of the app. It'll ask you where to save it and you tell it .
It does some simple file conversions. So far anything that i've downloaded using this app, from Youtube is playable on the i pod and iphone.

Yes,

This is the translation by Sokol1:

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.ph...f_Britain.html

Direct source:

http://www.sukhoi.ru/forum/showthread.php?t=65108

;)

Oooo that must mean it is getting close..

In all this discussion nobody's mentioned that we have no idea about the condition of the barrels being used in those videos.

After the battle of Milne Bay some of the .50 cals on the RAAF Kittyhawks had been shot out to .60 cal (During the two week long battle, the RAAF fired 200,000 rounds of .50 cal from their Kittyhawks).

I'm sure the balistics from thoses guns would have been interesting.

A few pages back duff442 posted a few charts. The one I found interesting was

http://www.nennstiel-ruprecht.de/bullfly/fig18.htm which showed the 5.56mm AP round.

In it, the spiral motion reduced as the round gyroscopically stabilized itself after leaving the barrel.

Given that the charts only measured the round in the first 8000 calibres (44m for the 5.56mm) I doubt anything other than a high speed camera would be able to distinguish the motion. Unfortunately I can't read the scale (on any of the charts) that shows the magnitude of the displacement being measured.

Cheers!

Has Oleg ever mentioned that SoW will make use of the new technologies like tesselation?

Sound
 

Nice video, nice sound, only the aim of pilot could be better;)

Btw, I have a question...dont know if I can put it here, maybe not, just registered myself...Are you going to add some music during flying? Im used to listen to the pink floyd and velvet underground in IL-2 anyway and not going to change it, but im just curious...

I am eagerly awaiting the release of Storm Of War and I did pre-order through Playcom about 18 months ago . It is a pity that we did not see the release for the BOB anniversary and even worse still , it will not be released for Christmas this year . From what I understand we are now looking at February 2011 --- hopefully it will be well worth the wait --- with ref to the music question------ I think it was 2nd July this year that someone posted pictures of BOB Storm Of War beginning with an aircraft with plumes of black smoke behind it and the music soundtrack was a little bit like the music which was used in the Tom Hanks film Big when he was at the fairground machine -------- does anyone know what this music was --- the post has been removed for some reason --- it was on Youtube but it has gone now --- I think maybe the poster was someone from Oleg`s team perhaps ---- the music was as good as any Pink Floyd track and I do like Pink Floyd ---- but this music would be suitable whilst preparing for a scramble maybe !!!!
Can anyone help me with this -- it`s droving me crazy !!!!!!!!!

Actually, we have, on September 3rd. I have had the same feeling at first!
This proves that Oleg did show us quite a lot of stuff if it becomes so easy to forget something we saw already two months ago!

Re: Tessellation

I'm not so sure games makers will be in such a hurry to adopt this. It's basically a labour saving measure for graphic designers, as I understand it at least. The number of DX11 cards out there is pretty small, and DX10 before it wasn't a massive hit with consumers.

dduff442

Its probably been said before, but i just cant understand some people, Hecke in particular.

This is the best looking sim there is, if theres anything better, let me know so i can buy it.

If you really need to ask this question, then you're not in a position to be critical of this game for not meeting your expectations, as you obviously have a poor understanding of hardware and software/game engines.

I'd go as far as saying clueless, unless you were being sarcastic. Neither work in your favour.

Give it a rest! You better take your freetime to point out every good aspect of the sim each friday.

Surely this is not just a difference between ON and OFF. Those are completely different 3D objects being shown. Don't think just adding tesselation will magically make roof tiles in the right shape. Or?

No, this is the same 3d object. But on the lower picture, the usual normal (or bump) map is used as a displacement map in conjunction with the tesselation. Which, basically, produces the new 3D object "on the fly". :)

The thing is, however, that this is hardly of any use in flightsim (appart from the cockpit model and water visual effects), since from the distance, a player usually see other objects in-game, the normal map works as good, as this feature.

PS On a second thought, this feature also can be used for finer ground surface generation, where even a small bumps can be modeled.

If tessellation can be "activated " function of viewing distance it would add a lot of "lifelikeness" to objects like rail ballast and sleepers, road sides, craters, generally man-made objects like houses, buildings...maybe without taxing too much FPS!
I hope professional 3D people will be able to enlighten us sooner or later :-) ...

Give it up. Any credibility you thought you had is totally evaporated.

YAAAAWWWWNNNNN, give it a rest will ya, its history....move on...Jeez:rolleyes:

Some of us give military service more weight than others, that's all Jafa. I didn't take Phil seriously before that statement, but others might have, so it's easy to see some emotions might be aroused.

I think I actually kind of understand what Phil could have meant, in that us amateur historians really do get a sense of having been there, through reading about experiences of others, and through the study of the backdrop and circumstances of these events.

Said the 25-45 year old virgin typing furiously in his mother's basement, waiting for her to bring down his din-din and explain this foreign concept of sarcasm and humour to his Aspergers riddled mind.

Grow up and get a freaking life.

All of us who have socialized in our lives (gone to that big scary room on the other side of your front door) and talked to people knew it was a joke. I especially knew that phillip was joking about being a BOB pilot since I was actually there in 1940 and I don't remember him.

p.s. I'm Douglas bader!

BadAim, only said it in the respect that its been said enough times already and im shure if there is a message to get hes already got it, ive known phil for a couple of years now and he likes to lark arround so cut him some slack cos we were all that age once, ps he knows I hang arround here too and that I wouldnt stand for that crap either if he was trying to pass it off as real.

It was quite clearly an off the cuff quip with no basis in fact, how anybody could take it otherwise I just don't know.

Oleg also mentioned that hedgerows might be 'mapped' in some way to give a 3D look, without having to model them. Bomb hole craters too maybe (as has been mentioned in this thread).

The picture: They are the same, but of course the model must be mapped in the correct way for the 3D effect to show...that is the wonder of this new graphics technology. It causes a lot less demand on your system than actual polygon modelling.
I think you need a dX11 compatible graphics card to enjoy the benefits of it.

I think SaQSoN is a professional.
Yes, I was also thinking of the railways...beaches (stones...rocks), cliffs. Even façades of bigger object buildings.

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g2...g?t=1288626480

S!

Tessellation is good for FPS games IMHO. Look at Metro 2033 and with high tessellation aka all DirectX 11 gimmicks on it brings to it's knees ANY of the new graphics cards. Really would you see from your 300mph+ speeding Spitfire or Hurricane cockpit if the stones of the railway would be bumped or not?

I really think tessellation could be dropped out of a flight sim that taxes the system hard enough without any more gimmicks to strain it even more. Sure, if an option for the screenie guys then sure, go for it. But if had to choose with it on at a 200+ plane engagement with decent FPS or horrbile FPS..no thanks.

Just my .2cents.

If it (or other techniques) can be used to make craters etc. without having polygon models then you might be getting performance benefit from it.

Anyway, I don't intend to start and finish missions in the air. There will be more to look at than sky.

Originally Posted by philip.ed http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/images/...s/viewpost.gif
Just a bit of sarcasm.

....

But no, I did not fight in the war but then I would never attempt to justifiy that I did. :grin: and me saying 'I was' is not me trying to lead you on.




I think that Phil is being sincere here, and wishes he gave some thought before making the post...when he first made the remark, I pictured him riding a tank with a general's rank, while the bliz...well, you know the rest:grin:

+1


Seems most people think tessellation wont effect fps or very little if so, compared to todays way of doing it.

It just takes some rational thinking to understand what tessellation in a game like SoW would do to framerates. Its not like they replace todays way with a more effective method, they are ADDING better graphics. More effective yes, but still MORE of it (hope u understand what i mean)

OMG my gpu just died would proppably fit in nicely if used in SoW for ex.

Hopefully in a couple of years?

Likewise, the only benefit I see at the moment is when you are starting up on the ground and taxiing out to the runway. As mentioned before, tesselized bomb craters would be nice, add some oomph to those evil landing gear benders.

This is exactly, how it works in the DX11, fully automatically. Basically, this feature replaces normal mapping feature. the later one is kind of "fake" 3D, which uses lighting effects to simulate small details. On the screenshot with the steam engine you can see "3D" rivetts, done with normal mapping. However, they only look 3D, while actually being flat.

Now, should the game support DX11 tesselation, at a certain distance (usually very close), the rivetts would become real 3D, in the following way: the polygon, this rivetts are painted on, would be tesselated into a HUGE number of a smaller polygons, which will be then displaced, using the same normal map as a displace map and form real 3D objects.

Actually, that is what normal mapping does quite well too. And definitely with bigger FPS (since there is much less polygons used).
As I said above, you would see distictive difference between displacement map and normal map only very close to the object. In a flight sim player very rarely sees objects that close (except cockpit, offcourse).

If a model is correctly made and mapped for use of normal mapping, it will not have to be remodelled to support tesselation+displacement mapping of DX11.
So, generally speaking, if someday Oleg's programmers will decide to include support of this technology into the game, his models will work well with it without any change.

You see, tesselation DOES BRING ADDITIONAL POLYGONS into the scene. Simply speaking, it "takes" a low-poly model and transforms it into a high-poly one (which, obviously looks better, if you are close enough to see the difference :) ).
This technology makes modeling easier, but it does not unload the GPU. On contrary, it loads it more. However, the modern (read, DX11 - compatible) GPUs can "chew" a lot more polygons, then the older ones, hence, allowing use of this technology without the significant performance drop.

PS Bomb craters are already 3D. ;)

re: tesselation;
Personally, I find the difference to be quite impressive.
But there are 2 concerns I have:
1- the fps hit.
If anyone has a DX11 capable card and a copy of the [-game-] [edit: Heaven benchmark] tesselation was demonstrated in, it would be interesting to know what impact the extra workload on the vid card caused (obviously while being played, not while taking still screenies).

2- can tesselation capability be easily laid over existing 3D models or does it require a complete rebuild?

C_G

In SoW?

Guess. :cool:

Can you proof it? ;)

:D Yes, and as has been said before, the point I was attempting to make is that we may never actually be able to nail something 100% I believe in trying, but my point is that even people who served can be wrong and, similarly, correct too ;)

In comparison to other posts on here from some members, I really can't see how i was so out of line. I just should have said that I was joking in my original post.
Similarly, I don't see how a sense of humour can take away any credibility that I have. At the end of the day, one comment doesn't make me irrational; at least in my opinion. I don't want to debate my intelligence, but I am by no means stupid. My comment was stupid though; but then we are all humans, and if you've never made a mistake in your life you are boring and, probably, extremely weird.

Anyway, back to SoW? If anyone has any issues with what I said PM me. I'm happy to chat. I wish I hadn't posted that comment now, but I am struggling to see how that can get in the way of my intelligence or anything that I've done with regards to contribution (both for the forum and SoW).

Yes, I can.





That, however, doesn't mean, I will. :-P Ask Oleg. ;)

I made made a mistake once, but it was that long ago that ive forgotten what it was?:confused: :grin:

Don't feel bad! These guys are just really ticked off and frustrated that their collection of 1:32 scale model WWII fighters are not raking in the chicks like they thought.

"But I have a BF-109G2 in winter camo! Why won't you go out with me!?!" Whhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. . . .

Once their moms powder their bottoms and put them to bed they'll settle down and forget your horribly offensive (sarcastic) post.

:grin: I'm avoiding the temptation to say I agree, because if the sh*t hits the fan again, I'll need to clean the room again.

Its not proof, but I believe Oleg said that the damage to the hurricane in the last set of screenshots was caused by a bomb crater.

SaQSon knows what he is talking about. He is connected.:-)

He did :D Pretty cool IMO. This will make quick-scarmbles in bombing raids all-the-more interesting.
Did Oleg say how long the craters would remain on the airfield? It'll open up a whole can of possibilities for dynamic campaigns.

I don't think there was any mention of how long craters remain. Hopefully until a bulldozer comes and flattens them! :-) ...or a group of maintenance staff with shovels. 3rd party modellers take note.

That would be cool. But even to fly the next sortie (the next day) to see the holes filled and areas marked off showing an unexploded bomb.
Or, as you say, to fly home and see the ground-crew filling the holes in.
A boy can dream...

Apology
 

Apologies for unintentionally starting a hare>

Following up the discussion about the Moscow fair and references to IL-2 Battle of Britain I found this site:

http://www.igromir-expo.ru/news1/2010/248

Which, inter alia contained this paragraph:

Посетителей ждут эксклюзивные показы «Red Orchestra 2: Герои Сталинграда», Shogun 2: Total War, «Ил-2 Штурмовик: Битва за Британию», «Ведьмак 2: Убийцы королей», «Полный привод 3», Inversion, F.E.A.R. 3. Афиши с расписанием презентаций будут вывешены в секциях «1С-СофтКлаб». Генеральным техническим партнером выступит компании Meijin и LG, а техническими партнерами — NVIDIA, Defender, A4Tech, Saitek, Gametrix

Which, when translated by Live Search, gave me this:

Visitors waiting for exclusive impressions "Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad 2, Shogun: Total War, IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Britain ', ' the Witcher 2: Killer of Kings", "four-wheel drive", Inversion, F.E.A.R. 3. Poster with the schedule of presentations will be posted in section 1С-SoftKlab ". The company's technical partner will speak and LG, Meijin technical partners, NVIDIA, Defender, A4Tech, Saitek Gametrix.

I completely missed the comma after Total War and the fact that Total War was an element of “Shogun 2”. I really must read more carefully, (anybody got a spare copy of “Eats Shoots and Leaves”?).:confused:

So my money is back on “Storm of War” for the reasons stated in an earlier thread.
Pete

I personally think they should abandon the Il2 tag. It only means something to those that will buy the game anyway. Everyone else wonders what it means. It is confusing and suggests it is aimed at a minimalistic group who would know it.
I have shown IL2 to several people, not one of them knew what IL2 meant or, more importantly how to say it ('eel two', 'ill too', 'aisle two').

If you can't say it you won't buy it!!!!


...

This is about winning an argument on the internet, nothing to do with being offended. If you get deeply offended this easily then your friends must tread on eggshells around you.

To be honest, I also was extremely surprised, when I saw this title across the beta loading screen. Not the best choice, IMO

It may be completely wrong, but someone on Russian forum wrote, that according to Oleg, this was publisher's idea.

Sorry for spreading a rumor, he-he. Hopefully, Oleg will clarify this himself. ;)

<shakesfist>You bloody tease!!!</shakesfist>

Yeah, you know, someone has to work hard, while you are wasting your time on this forums. :rolleyes: :-P

Actually, I asked Oleg. ;)

The answer was, that he never stated there will be deep craters.

But, buuuut... you're on the forums too :D

I couldn't be more jealous lol :)

Neither did I, if you read my posts carefully. ;)

Did I say, that you did? Man, don't interpret every single post just how you want it.

You better tell us more detailed what you know. :)

I need to chill a little in-between CTDs. :grin:

Believe me, there is nothing to be jealous about. The build, that I have isn't in the state, where one can enjoy the game. But, even though, it looks very, very promising. :cool:

Guys, don't confuse the stock, 3d, volumetric FSX clouds with the ones from the real environment extreme payware add-on. The REX clouds are not fully 3d objects, but photographs of real clouds scanned into a PC and overlayed on the screen during gameplay. They say it themselves on their website.

You can also check it yourself by going to the FSX top-down view during a flight with cloudy weather. If you have the stock clouds, cloud cover is visible on the top-down/satellite view because the stock clouds are 3d. If you have REX installed you see clouds in all the other views but not in the satellite view. What REX probably does is read the weather information about where the default 3d clouds would appear and replace them with its own textures on the fly, which would explain why there's no clouds visible at all in the top-down view.

Don't get me wrong, they look terrific but when flying close or through them it's clearly visible that they are somewhat "flat". I like them a lot, but in a combat flight sim where people will use clouds as tactical tools there are other considerations that prevent such an approach.

If a cloud is a collection of 3-4 "flat" faces, how can the game engine calculate what's visible to each player in a multiplayer scenario? I might think i'm in the cloud trying to escape an attacker while he sees me plain as day, or vice versa. Also, how will this work (or not work) with ray-tracing/line of sight calculations for the AI, etc etc.

I wish we could have REX quality clouds through real 3d volumetric methods, but i think we don't have the PCs to do it yet. And since the question ends up being "prettier but technically dodgy or just pretty but tactically functional", for a combat flight sim the second option is best.

2007 stuff here. I have posted this before, but it shows (to me) that really good 3rd party apps for effects like clouds are available which also look great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLfHDul5XGw

Still jealous lol :)

I'd happily spend hours compiling bug reports :D

Nice but with its own drawbacks, and there's always a risk when integrating 3rd party libraries into your code. FWIW you can try a demo of those clouds here (not sure it's the exact same thing but looks seems to use the same approach).

Yes I thought that too...as Oleg has to model transparency etc for visibility and the AI coding, using 3rd party apps is probably too complex...

Someone will be along soon to ask you what computer you were running it on...
:-)

It would be extremely nice to see the ground look just a little different where the hole has been filled. Just a little difference in texture, a bit muddy maybe.

I think he said there won't be deep craters due to some sort of game engine restriction. BUT the question is how deep is deep? I would imagine they will have some depth, just not 10ft deep.

Yeah, I agree, it would be cool. I'm not sure how hard it'd be to model though?

About as deep as the trenches shown in shot 1 this week possibly?

If they're that deep I'd be extremely happy.
It'd be a first for cf-sims too, wouldn't it?

I know I already asked,but,anyone know if Oleg told something about infantry in SoW at any time of its development?Too many posts on his threads...

He said we would have to wait for it. It will not be in the original release. There will maybe be some civilians, and maybe some military, that's all.

EDIT: http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...&postcount=320

..

Thanks a lot for the in game movie with sound.
Will the tracers have smoke trails?

Edit...sorry if already been asked.

In my travels today, I noticed that the clouds looked painted on the sky. I wish I had a decent camera with me (my phone is very low tech, with a crap camera)(and at any rate I doubt even a good camera would have really captured the effect), because I think it would have made an interesting picture. Does that mean real life is under-modeled?

I've always thought that the clouds in Il2 were nice except for the "cotton-ball effect". Sunrises and sunsets can be quite spectacular in Il2, I doubt that we'll see something that is not exponentially better in SOW.

I'm personally just not worried about the clouds, I guess different people just have different priorities.

Yes he did and that is very cool, but it doesn't mean that bomb craters are 3D deformations of the terrain. In fact I seem to recall Oleg specifically saying that they are not, and that they are only bump-mapped so that they appear to have depth when you see them from altitude. You could still keep track of where they are and model damage from driving over them despite this.

Correct me if I am wrong but so far I haven't heard of anything to indicate that the engine supports deformable terrain geometry in any way.

Hopefully they maybe more subtle and ask to help diagnose the CTD's with full details of the offending machine of course :)

I can't remember Oleg saying that they were bump-mapped but he did say
I guess its how you interpret the comment "They will be but not so deep. Limits in engine grid".

Cheers